I've bought several things from Gemm despite that nasty photo. Sorry guys, it's not sexy or in good taste either. ;-p I tend to not buy much there though because of Gemm's service charges. But, I always look there for good deals on stuff I find elsewhere. Every now and again they have a better deal, even with their high service fees.

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The more you love music, the more you love music.

Don't forget linear tracking such as this one as well. No arc thus perfect alignment. It seems like they had there own disadvantages, I don't quite recall as I havn't shopped for a tt in 25 years though. I mowed lawns all summer to buy one of these plus an ortofon cart. I still remember how proud of it I was when I bought it, still am for that matter.

I've been thinking sometime about getting a quality turntable to play my old vinyl. I have a couple of questions, though. Why do some TTs have straight tone arms while others are S shaped? Is DD preferable to belt driven?

Both arm types are designed to deal with tracking error. Both work, but the S arm will always have more mass (bad), and counter- balancing the arm will not make mass go away. DD was made popular in the 70s and 80s by companies based in japan. Their marketing positioned belt-drive as old fashioned. In reality, belts work better (with a hi-mass platter). The DD motors would tend to 'hunt' for the correct speed with their Phase Lock Loop feedback system.

I have the Pro-ject Debut III. Good basic TT. I would recommend upgrading the cartridge from the stock OM5. I got an OM10 on ebay for about $30 and it's a marked improvement.

Agreed. The great thing about the Debut III is that there are some very nice upgrades you can do as/if your appreciation for vinyl grows.

The first is as oldskoolboarder points out, the stylus/cartridge, and if you stick with the OM series you can upgrade just the stylus, and not have to deal with recalibrating the body, and save some cash.

Next, you can upgrade to smaller steel platter to the full size acrylic platter. Very similar to the Rega upgrade for the P1.

Then you can get the Pro-ject Speedbox, which adds quartz accuracy 60hz regulation to the AC power input which in turn regulates the platter speed.

Don't forget linear tracking such as this one as well. No arc thus perfect alignment. It seems like they had there own disadvantages, I don't quite recall as I havn't shopped for a tt in 25 years though.

wow, what an amazing looking machine! ;^)

You're right; the Linear Trackers replaced one problem with another, and the problem(s) they introduced (resonance and bearing wear and slop) were more difficult and expensive to deal with.

Good carts are now designed to deal with most of the tracking angle variances. You just have to make sure they are set up perfectly to start!